Latest thinking

Smelling the ethanol

Blog

16 May 2014

Steve Broome

The links between alcohol consumption and offending are well-documented, at least at a topline level. Over a fifth of prisoners surveyed in 2012 reported an alcohol problem when they began their sentence (a survey which was likely to underestimate the prevalence of alcohol problems among offenders due to under-reporting and recognition of problems), and an earlier survey in 2010 found that three fifths of those entering prison with an alcohol problem would also leave with one.

Are you coming to bed?

Blog

31 Mar 2014

Susie Pascoe

March has been National Bed Month.

The RSA Whole Person Recovery, Co-Design Learning Journeys, June / July 2013 – Some reflections…

Blog

09 Sep 2013

As Lead Recovery Community Organiser within the WPR programme, one of my responsibilities is to ensure there is a quick and responsive capacity on the part of my team, to meet the emergent requirements of the community of c.600 service users within the west Kent region that we work in.  Earlier this summer in June, I had a seemingly random conversation with one of my colleagues from our principle partner organisation CRI - www.cri.org.uk about the prospect of somehow transforming the rather standard and corporate ‘social care facility’ non-aesthetic (that is a space designed and decorated, without any real design-sensibility informing the look, feel and function of the space) at the Tonbridge hub.

The Building Blocks of Stronger Communities

Blog

04 Jun 2013

Jack Robson

This is a blog post by Susie Pascoe. Researcher and Recovery Community Organiser for the RSA.

The Self-Tapping Screw

Blog

14 May 2013

The Self-Tapping Screw: Recollections of a Borstal Officer, Simon Barlow, 22 May 2013 at 6pm, Tunbridge Wells Council Chamber, Town Hall, Royal Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1RS

Whole Person Recovery - One Year On

Blog

24 Apr 2013

The RSA’s Whole Person Recovery project’s first anniversary is this spring.  You may have been following our progress in West Kent through the fellowship newsletter, the Whole Person Recovery Newsletter or the Recovery Blog.  Maybe you’ve attended a Public Event Programme lecture or a Recovery Alliance Meeting.  If this is the first you’re hearing of the programme it’s a perfect opportunity to get involved.  You don’t need to have personal experience of addiction or recovery to contribute to the programme. Recovery is a complex and individual journey with which we can all relate to in respect of its organic or non-linear nature.

The everyday lives of recovering heroin users

Blog

16 Oct 2012

It is not often that service users and practitioners alike are scrambling for copies of the same academic publication.  Professor Joanne Neale, Dr. Sarah Nettleton and Dr. Lucy Pickering have produced a piece of work that captures the ‘The everyday lives of recovering heroin users’ through interviews with forty men and women in varying stages of recovery from heroin use.  The book illuminates the mental, physical and emotional struggles and transformations someone might go through in recovery using the words of those with first-hand experience.

Thousands walk in support of drug recovery

Press release

29 Sep 2012

Today thousands of individuals from around the U.K. will gather by Hove seafront to walk through Brighton in support of the drug recovery movement.

Does 'dual diagnosis' have a place in a recovery agenda?

Blog

03 Aug 2012

Having a 'dual diagnosis' means that someone who has mental health problems also has problems with one or more drugs, including alcohol. In my years as a substance misuse practitioner I would frequently work with individuals where underlying and undiagnosed mental health issues would have a significant impact on problematic drug and alcohol use.